The Italian Teacher(45)

Pinch explores his new college town, sidestepping flocks of drunken teens who stagger between a support system of frat houses, burger joints, drop-in clinics. Taking refuge in his one-bedroom rental, Pinch looks out the window, a church sign across the road: “Afterlife Guaranteed!” Thank God, he thinks, that this fellowship lasts only nine months.

He makes a showing at the department, introducing himself to Howie Zwinkels, a sociology professor with high-culture pretensions, who established the college’s art history program in 1973. Vigorously, he shakes Pinch’s hand, saying how he admires Bear Bavinsky. “Now I let you in on a little secret: All this rigmarole is nothing but a front for my wine club,” he kids. “Imagine how excited I am to get an Italian speaker on board.” He drags out a case of Tuscan reds and produces an Italian-language wine guide, which Pinch is compelled to read aloud. He translates so well that Zwinkels declares: “Forget this silly fellowship, Charles. Do your doctorate here!”

Pinch smiles politely.

“I’m not joking,” Zwinkels says.

“Wow,” Pinch responds, appalled. “Gosh. Maybe.” Privately, he remains fixated on NYU, where he plans to transfer next year to join Barrows, even if she doesn’t yet know. He’ll require Zwinkels’ reference to apply there. For now, Pinch must please the man. When they chat, he finds himself mimicking the professor’s body language, arms folded, heel against the wall, accent shifting closer to Zwinkels’. After the weekly brie-and-Chianti tastings, Pinch closes the door to his one-bedroom, reading the church sign again.

After several weeks, he has a visitor, Widgeon, last seen a decade earlier, clinging to Bear’s leg in Larchmont. Today, she’s an overweight seventeen-year-old in an excess of makeup who is considering colleges for next year, with far more anxiety than hope. It was Birdie—a qualified vet now, married and living in North Carolina—who arranged this visit. She keeps Pinch informed on their extended family in irregular, funny letters. With typical snark, she explained that their half sister lacks smarts or a good education—might Evenlode be an option?

He escorts Widgeon around campus, shows her his office. “Any questions? Don’t be shy.” She shakes her head vigorously, as if he’d requested that she summarize Kissinger’s strategy on China while performing a Nadia Com?neci floor routine. “Ask me anything, even if it sounds silly. Even if—” The office phone rings. Before answering, he tells her, “I keep getting calls for the last guy who was here.” He picks up, saying, “Greg has left the department.”

“Who? What?”

“Dad!” Pinch says. “How did you get this number?”

Widgeon hurries to her feet at the mention of their father.

“Dad, you know who’s here with me? She came for a visit of—”

Bear says, “Your mother died.”

For an instant, Pinch detaches, his eyes drawing in light, brain incapable of translating it; ears deafened, sensing only a plastic phone receiver; lips dry; hands cold; nauseous saliva under his tongue. He stares across his desk, Widgeon waving for her turn with Daddy.

“I’m sorry to say, Charlie, that she did it to herself. Stupid goddamn thing.” Solemnly, Bear explains how he heard, that Cecil tracked him down through the Petros Gallery.

“What do you mean?” Pinch says, not able to grasp, or care, how Bear came to know. “What do you mean?” He opens his eyes wider for a clearer reality than this. The horror repeats, as if he weren’t informed once but learns anew with each pulse of consciousness, falling from an airplane, spinning in somersaults down. “I don’t understand.”

Jumping in place, Widgeon beams at him. “Let me speak to Poppa!”

Bear states facts that accumulate like a highway pileup, nothing reaching Pinch, although the images will never leave him: “six days on the floor before they walked in . . .” and “a plastic bag over her head . . .”

When he puts down the phone, Widgeon is crestfallen. “Why didn’t I get to talk to him?”

“Something happened,” Pinch says, standing.

“Okay, but still,” she says softly.

Pinch leads her from the department, points her toward the train station, unable to react when her angry tears brim. “I have to leave now?” she says.

“Sorry.” Alone at his apartment, Pinch stands under the shower for so long that the hot water runs out, the spray thinning to a dribble—then pelting down icily. He gasps, not allowing himself to escape the cold. An hour later, he remains nude, sitting on the closed toilet, teeth chattering, this thudding horror. He covers his eyes with the towel, looks at the darkness. Natalie looks back, shrugs.

When he reaches her flat in London, Pinch washes all the dirty dishes, careful that no crockery touches, as if the slightest ding would crack him. He attempts to arrange a funeral but finds only a few numbers in her phone book. When he calls them, a few don’t even recognize the name: “Sorry, who died?” Others feign distress and sympathy, clearly just wanting the gossip: “What happened exactly?” Finally, Cecil intervenes, asking if a funeral service is absolutely necessary. And so, Natalie is cremated. The urn awaits pickup.

After a few days, he forces himself to deal with her bedroom, on whose floor Natalie died. He opens her closet, dresses swaying. He gathers summer hats, empties her underwear drawer, pausing at the bedside table: her bifocals on the purple-silk ribbon. He opens a rubbish bag. But hours later, Pinch remains cross-legged on the floor, studying artifacts, nothing discarded. What is my objective here? To respect her privacy? Or limit my pain? Or preserve something of Natalie? Accomplishing one aim violates another.